


Lee is not even an anagram

by Rae_Saxon



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: BME - Big Master Energy, But Not the Good Kind, F/M, Lee is the Master, Mindfuck, The Ep 5 kind of mindfuck, because seriously, it's complicated - Freeform, look at him, the kind that fucks up your mind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-28
Updated: 2020-01-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:01:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22453087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rae_Saxon/pseuds/Rae_Saxon
Summary: The Doctor and... the other Doctor are being surrounded by Rassilon and his guards, trying to catch their fugitive back for experiments. Lee jumps to their help. And so does the Master. Though, in this story, that's pretty much the same thing.
Relationships: The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who), Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 144





	Lee is not even an anagram

**Author's Note:**

> Yep, I am still trying to process Fugitive of the Judoon. I'm not sure anything is interested in my takes in this, but I have to point out that Lee really.... felt like the Master to me. So here it is. It was telling me to get written ever since. Now it's here. Lee is the Master. Smooching the Doctor. On screen. Canonically married. You're welcome.

“Who's after you, Doctor?”  
  
She just shrugged, but the Doctor knew that shrug. It was the shrug that was trying to say “nothing” without words, the shrug that tried not to lie to people while giving nothing but lies.

She shuddered.

Every little piece of evidence, every second she spent with that woman, she recognised herself more and more inside of her, and it terrified her.

“Maybe it's better you don't remember,” the Doctor – the other Doctor – said with a sigh.

She didn't know how this could possibly be true. Memories, simply gone, buried, a whole life she had lived, filled with people, with loved ones, with enemies, all forgotten now.

She thought of Lee, murdered by the Judoon, of Gat, murdered in front of her eyes. Soberly, cleanly wiped out of existence to never haunt her again, while she forgot their existence so utterly.

It just felt wrong. All of it. So incredibly wrong.

She thought of Jack's warning and sighed. If only she could talk to him. Ironically, he might be the person best equipped to tell her how to handle with lost memories.

They were standing in front of each other, both still trying to assess the situation, to figure out the massive can of worms that had just been opened. She could feel her own shock radiate from this Doctor in front of her, in waves, could tell that they both only wanted the same thing – Their life back the way it always had been.

"Will you be alright?” she asked, sensing she'd be thrown out of her own – past – TARDIS soon. “Without Lee?”

Pain flickered onto this Doctor's face.

“I don't know,” she finally admitted. “I don't know how to be without him. Who I am. He's always been by my side. Always.”

The Doctor nodded, sadness spreading inside of her.

How could she have loved someone that much and then just forgotten him? How could any of this have _ever_ happened?

Her head was spinning.

“I'll drop you off near your TARDIS,” the other Doctor finally said into the spreading silence, and she nodded, not sure what to say.

They dematerialised.

She had gotten enough of running around the TARDIS, looking at a past she couldn't remember. It felt too heavy, now, too scary to really dig into it further. She wanted to leave, be back in her own, familiar ship, trying to sort her thoughts, wanted to talk to Jack, wanted to... to...

Well, in all honesty, she wanted to see the Master.

The sound of the motors stopped. She recognised the way her TARDIS fell into silence, the anticipating buzzing following her to the door, as she laid her hand on the handle.

She sighed.

A part of her was nothing but relieved to escape this weird reality she had found herself in, but another part knew she was leaving behind her best shot for answers.

“Take care.”

“You too.”

She pushed open the door, stepped out and found herself surrounded.

Before even realising who she was facing, she instinctively turned around, trying to shut the door behind her, but a foot was already blocking the frame, holding it open, and next thing she knew was a laser gun at the back of her head.

The Doctor growled – She had definitely had enough of this day.

“Come out, come out, Doctor,” a voice sang and she recognised the words, recognised the sinking feeling of fear pooling in her stomach, the voice sent her shivers down her spine, without knowing if she had ever heard it before. The collar hit her in the side, when he stepped towards the TARDIS entrance, pompous and huge, and she knew who he was, there was no doubt, not a single one.

She should've known, really.

One could always count on Rassilon to make their days worse.

“Your TARDIS is surrounded,” one of the Time Lord soldiers count. “We have disabled its dematerialisation circuits. There's no way out for you.”

They grabbed the Doctor, kept her from helping out her past, her arms painfully pulled as they dragged her to the side.

Inside, the other Doctor was seething with barely contained anger.

“Oh, aren't you brave? Jumping a woman from behind.”

“Come out,” Rassilon gave back, his tone so icy, she was sure it could freeze the TARDIS on the spot. “It's time to return home.”

“Home?” the Doctor spit, but stepped outside with her hands raised, eyes narrowed at the guards pointing guns at her. “You call that hole you put me into a 'home'? Don't make me laugh.”

“Believe me,” Rassilon replied with a rather smug smirk. “Making you laugh is the furthest thing on my mind. Have you got any idea how long we've been looking for you?”

“Oh, has your little time experiment fled the scene? What a shame,” she spit as a reply.

Behind her, the other Doctor looked alarmed.

“Time experiment? So that's what's going on here? You used m.... her as... as what exactly?”

Rassilon gave her a sharp look.

“Nice try, but I assure you, Doctor, we know exactly who you are. You are coming with us also.”

The both women exchanged a look. This was getting critical.

“You don't need her,” the other Doctor suddenly roared, her voice full of range. “Don't be a sadist, Rassilon. You've done enough to me without having to do it to my future, too.”

“Shut up,” one of the guards called out and pushed her, making her growl.

“Now now, no need for that.” Rassilon's condescending smirk sent shivers down the Doctor's spine. “Just teleport her back home. Make sure to keep an eye on her. She's quite resourceful. We'll come after with... this one...”

His eyes flickered to the Doctor, who straightened herself in resolve.

“And what do you want with me?”

From the corners of her eyes she saw her secret past self get teleported away, her hearts racing in silent anger.

“I don't know yet,” Rassilon smiled, fascination gleaming in his eyes. “But you are certainly interesting. No recollection whatsoever, am I right? No memory of what has been done to you... at all?”

“And that's lucky for you!” she called out, feeling the rage rave through her veins. “Because if I did...”

A single image appeared in her mind, an image that had etched itself into it, the image of Gallifrey, in ruins, shattered remains of what she once thought of as home and she got cold, incredibly cold, thinking of what could've driven the Master to do something like that... and the realisation that it must've been for her.

She had never wanted that. Surely, surely, he must've known that she had never wanted that? Unless...

Her eyes flickered to Rassilon again, rage replaced by insecurity.

Her voice was nothing more than a hoarse whisper, when she asked again.

“What have you done to her?”

“You'll know soon enough,” he replied, that same cold smile still on his lips. “Take her,” he nodded towards the guard holding her.

Before he could hit teleport, however, she had torn herself away from him, jumping backwards. She might be alone against five, but she could at least try to fight, to run, anything. Her TARDIS wasn't too far away and...  
  
Weapons clicked, as they safeties were released. She froze on spot, trying to think of the next step to take, but before she could react, the guard right in front of me fell to the ground with a dull sound. The other's turned around, trying to find his attacker, and were quickly knocked out with their colleague's own gun.

He didn't shoot, she noticed, as he whirled around, throwing a fourth guard to the floor, before kicking the last one in the stomach, sending him to the ground with a cry.

Rassilon attempted to move, but was quickly facing the barrel of two laser guns, both wielded by...

Lee?

“But you're dead!” she called out, not understanding a single thing anymore. “I watched you die!”

“And now I'm back,” Lee shot back. “It's what I do, get used to it.”

The Doctor watched him with mouth wide open, as he pushed Rassilon back, his gun still raised.

“Get my wife back here. Now. Or I will shoot you in the hearts so many times, you'll wish to have never achieved your bloody immortality, you just wait.”

“I cannot do that without teleporting, fool.”

“Send one of your guards, then.”

The Doctor's eyes flicked back to them and one of them was moving, still clutching his stomach. Quickly, she grabbed one of the guns and aimed it at him.

“Grab your teleport,” she demanded. “And get the Doctor back. Now.”

She wasn't good at this. Demanding, pushing people around, threatening them with guns – God, she hated guns. But she couldn't see another way, not right now, not against this.

Lee turned towards them, just for a fleeting second, his face full of worry, and it was enough for Rassilon to activate his own teleport bracelet, simply vanishing from the scene.

“Bloody coward”, growled Lee, throwing his gun to the ground. “He simply left them here!”

“We can follow them,” the Doctor suggested quietly, pointing at the still unconscious guards and their own teleport bracelets.

He took one of them, but when he saw the Doctor picking up hers, he grabbed it and tore it away from her.

“No,” he spit. “You're already far too involved. It's dangerous, you could lose more than your life if you get into trouble on Gallifrey. Your whole existence is at stake. I'll protect her. I'll get her out of this. You... go live your life, Doctor.”

“What is going on?” the Doctor asked with a shake of her head, feeling helpless, feeling overwhelmed, the craziness of the whole situation starting to truly weigh down on her. “Who _are_ you?”

There was a shadow in Lee's eyes and she could see her question had hurt him. How could it not, she thought bitterly. He loved her, clearly loved her enough to give his life for her blindly, again and again, and she didn't even remember him.

Instead of a reply, he hit the teleport button, disappearing from sight.

The Doctor stood as if glued to the ground, staring at the spot he had just vanished on, when a familiar – thank God, finally something familiar – voice spoke from behind her.

“Who do you think?”

Her eyes widened as she turned around. She already knew who had spoken, of course she knew, she always did, she already knew what he was implying, but it was too much, just too much.

“You would be caught up in this, of course you would,” she finally whispered and the Master laughed.

“It's what I do best. Being caught up with you, somewhere deep in this drama.”

“Did you... do you... do you remember this?” she asked. She just had to know. “Any of it?”

He shook his head slowly.

“Do I remember being married to you, hiding out on Earth, on the run from Gallifrey for some suspect experiments they have used you for, and calling myself _Lee_? Seriously? Don't you think I would've mentioned it? _He_ told me when I ran into him.”

The Doctor giggled.

“Dunno how you ever thought of 'Lee'. It's not even an anagram.”

He was stepping closer, hands in his pockets and apparently reassured by her reaction not being spiteful.

“Yeah, just doesn't sound like me.”  
  
He looked down on the guards, then sighed.

“We should send them home.”

She knelt down, sonic screwdriver in her hands, and modified the destination of the teleport bracelets, just a little bit, to take them away from the action, then sent them back to Gallifrey. Somewhere out there, she thought, it still exists and it's a place I should never, ever be going to.

“Think they're going to be okay?” she asked him with a worried frown and he shrugged.

“As long as we're still standing right here, we have to assume history did what it has always been doing. Whether we're alright or not...”

He stopped talking.

Yeah, she thought. I don't know anymore, either.

She had thought so, when she had regenerated. A new team, friends that stuck to her, a new future ahead, full of possibilities, her planet saved. For a while, she had been able to tell herself that everything was alright, but here she was now, with an enigmatic past catching up with her – with _them_ – that she couldn't remember and her planet burnt to the ground.

“So... married, huh?” She grinned, tentatively.

The Master snorted.

“I don't have a ring. Until I know better, I gotta assume divorce.”

“You protected her... me... all this time.”

“Probably just a plot to kill you even more spectacularly later,” the Master shrugged, looking at the ground.

“You destroyed Gallifrey,” she whispered and his eyes shot up to her sharply.

“I really hope you don't consider me ending billions of life as romantic, because if you did, I'd be seriously worried about your mental health - The last time you thought that, you were the Valeyard."

The Doctor laughed.

"Don't tell me - You were secretly married to that one, too?"

The Master grinned.  
  
"Nah, he wasn't the type. We had some hot sex, though."

“I don't. For the record. I don't think it's romantic in the slightest. I don't know... what is going on. In our past. But I know you. And I know you did this out of rage for.. for...”

“We were something, Doctor,” the Master replied, his voice so quiet it was almost a whisper. “For a while there, we were something. And all that's left of it is the irredeemable urge to be close to one another, that bloody draw keeping us together ever since, and don't, don't you deny that right now,” he added sharply.

She sighed.

“We were something in a timeline that we remember, too, you know? We were something far before we knew of all... all this. And we messed it up then, and apparently messed it up again.”

“We had a whole life we don't remember. And a start that might not have been the start. A first meeting that might not have been the first.” He shook his head. “My mind is spinning.”

“I know,” she laughed sadly. “Mine too. It's too complicated, with just half of the truth.”

“What does this make us? Puppets?” he asked, and there were tears in his dark eyes, tears that almost broke the Doctor's hearts. “I thought I loved you, because... when we met... I thought we were something like soulmates, now all we are is... married people who didn't remember they loved each other?”

“Maybe we're just people who found each other twice,” she threw in with a little smile. “Does that take anything away from us? I don't think so. Maybe it can give us something, one day, once we remember. A whole other life in which we were happy, instead of messing it up and trying to kill each other repeatedly. Can you imagine?”

“I don't understand it,” the Master sighed, after a little while, but a little smile was playing around his lips now. “All of it. What they did to us. How they did it.”

“We'll figure it out,” she promised, holding out her hand. “Together?”

“Are you kidding me?” he asked, staring at her hand.

She let it sink quickly, the smile dying on her face.

“Come the hell here,” he laughed, pulling her close, his arms around her hips, as he pressed a soft, genuinely gentle kiss onto her lips.

“Oh,” she breathed, then smiled. “We're doing that now, are we?”

“Might as well,” he smiled back, his eyes still glued to her lips. “For all we know, we're married.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Get what you ask for (Just not how you expected)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23462050) by [BlueBioluminescence](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueBioluminescence/pseuds/BlueBioluminescence)




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